1843-1900

FOR twenty years Secretary of the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, and full of real interest and zeal in his office, Robert Walker probably did more than any one else in his time to help substantially the cause of painting in the city. No figure was deservedly better known in the art circles of the West of Scotland than that of the earnest, kindly, humorous little Secretary; and to the real support awakened and assiduously fostered by him about his Institute may be attributed not a little of the development of that Glasgow School which has become famous in the painting world. But Walker was also a man of letters and a poet. He was one of the founders and first secretary of the Glasgow Pen and Pencil Club, and was an original member of the Glasgow Ballad Club.

Born in Glasgow, 19th March, 1843, the son of a banker, he was educated at the Edinburgh Institution, and in 1858 apprenticed to the Edinburgh Life Assurance Company. After filling the positions successively of the company's inspector for Lancashire and for Ireland, and secretary for Dublin, he returned to Glasgow in 1872 as Scottish secretary of the Reliance Society; and when the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts was established in 1880, he became its acting secretary. This position he held till his death. At the same time, from the days of his apprenticeship, he had practised his literary faculty. As early as 1863 he had contributed stories and sketches to the Glasgow Citizen and Hedderwick's Miscellany. Now, with the opportunities afforded by the Institute, he became an acknowledged writer on art subjects. Nearly half the biographical articles in Messrs. Isbister's volume, "Toilers in Art," were written by him, and he had a considerable share in preparing the memorial volume of the Fine Art Collection of Glasgow Exhibition in 1888. He was also author of the Glasgow and Aberdeen special numbers of the Graphic, and was a frequent contributor to that paper, the Art Journal, Black and White, and other periodicals. He did not write much poetry, but his "Level Crossing" has long been a popular recitation, and some other pieces of merit are included in the volumes of the Ballad Club.

CRILLON THE BRAVE

Through all the vast cathedral pile
The preacher's deep voice rolled,
As he, with insight rare and true,
The oft-heard story told

Of how our Lord upon the cross
The sins of men had borne;

Of how, deserted and alone,

He met men's rage and scorn.

No frothy pulpiteer was he:

Straight from the heart he spoke,
And in his hearers' awe-struck hearts
An answering echo woke.

Among the crowd old Crillon sat,
His whole soul deeply stirred;
An arrow to his conscience seemed
The preacher's every word.

Crillon the brave—no better knight
Than he had wielded lance

In all the fights that drenched with blood
The fairest fields of France.

His king he served with honest faith

Through many a doubtful day

The wisest at the council board

The foremost in the fray.

But now, of court and camp heart-sick,
His weary soul sought rest;

The warrior's spirit stern and rude
The Church's power confessed.

White-haired and bent old Crillon sat,
His wild, hot youth all past;
But still he burned with martial fire,
A soldier to the last.

"Deserted and alone, no friend To pity, none to save,

The meek-souled Lamb of God was sent
Despised to the grave."

The preacher paused: a clash of steel
Through all the silence rang,

As Crillon, young and strong once more,
To his full stature sprang.

And, waving high above his head

His battle-dinted blade

That blade from which in other years
His foes had shrunk dismayed,

The fierce wild light of long-past days
O'er-flushing all his brow,

He cried, with anguish in his cry,

"Oh, Crillon, where wert thou?"

1844-1895

A SOMEWHAT sad-visaged man, evidently enjoying only indifferent health, of slight, stooping figure, and a sufferer from that bane of the sedentary, dyspepsia-such was John Gilkison in his later years. Nevertheless he was possessor of the quaintest vein of humour that Glasgow has seen among her poets, and amid his own somewhat disheartening experiences of life he generated many a merry quip for the delectation of others.

Born in the Gorbals of Glasgow, the poet spent much of his boyhood on his grandfather's farm in Ulster, and to this experience, along with the Irish blood of his mother, he probably owed the fine humour that he kept to the end. At school in Ireland his chief friends were two nephews of Captain Mayne Reid. They lent him their uncle's productions, and in his room beneath the rafters, where he was sent early to bed, with the poplars swaying in the wind outside the little gable window, the boy pored over these wonderful tales. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to the trade of umbrella-making in Glasgow, and for twenty years remained in the employment of his first masters. In later life he attempted, without much success, to establish a business in Dunbarton, and for some time before his death he occupied the position of a clerk in one of the departments of Glasgow Corporation. It may be suspected, however, that his real interest was never in the details of his trade. At one time he had a hankering to be a musician, but an accident to a finger spoilt his violin hand. He had also thoughts of the stage, but after two years' membership of the David Garrick Club he was disillusioned by finding himself cast for nothing higher than a sailor in "The Rent Day." His true rôle was that of humorist-a slender profession to make a living by, yet one which, with greater advantages of education, he might have turned to sufficient account. It was to his faculty that the Wizard and the Bee, short-lived Glasgow comic papers, owed whatever happy merit they possessed; and he was the "Yorick Glasguensis" from whose pen came the highly amusing Jean Byde Papers, of which some highly successful numbers were published in 1873. He was author of Charles Bernard's

first and most famous pantomime at the Gaiety Theatre in Glasgow ; and he was adapter of the next, and had a hand in many successors. Many of the songs which he wrote for these pantomimes, such as "The Calico Ball" and "What's wrang wi' ye?" were full of humorous local allusions, and proved immensely popular at the time. Gilkison was also author of more than one serial tale, and he wrote a series of children's toy story books for a firm of Glasgow publishers.

The only work, however, by which Gilkison is likely to live is his poetry. For many years he was the acknowledged humorist of the Glasgow Ballad Club, some of his best pieces appearing in its volumes. And in 1888 he gathered his productions and published them under the title of "The Minister's Fiddle: a Book of Verse, humorous and otherwise."

Alas, poor Yorick! After more than one fight with death, in circumstances enough to quench the most sturdy humour, he was carried away by the bitter February of 1895, when the cold was for some weeks so intense that it was impossible to dig graves for the dead. So it seemed that the earth was to prove inhospitable to its jester even when his quips were ended and his lips for ever closed.

THE LAMENT OF DOUGAL MACGREGOR

So Dougal lay dead, och aree!

His chanter now silenced for effer;

The last Red Macgregor wass he,
A ferry goot job whateffer.

Oh, 'tis he that wass aye the wild lad,

With hough like a bullock or filly,

His life had its goot and its bad,

Wass piper and henchman and gillie.

But now he lay dead, och aree!

No more he would tread on the heather;

And clansmen from Luss to Lochee,

All mourned for Dougal together.